GDC 2007: Peter Jackson Turns Halo Episodic

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You may finish the battle with Master Chief in Halo 3, but the war will continue for many more years.

By Micah Seff

According to game industry website, Gamasutra, Microsoft big-wigs Chris Satchell and Shane Kim conducted an impromptu Q & A session at a special GDC breakfast held by Microsoft this morning. During this Q & A, the executives spoke about the future of the Halo franchise and addressed many facets of Microsoft's approach to handling the Xbox 360 further down the line.

The most diehard Xbox fans out there are likely to remember that during Microsoft's X06 conference, Bungie Studios announced two collaborations with popular New Zealander, Peter Jackson. Since then, information has been on lockdown, prompting some to pre-emptively mourn the death of this project.

This morning's most palpably huge development was Kim's confirmation that both previously announced projects are still in development, and that they would both be episodic gaming series. While both projects are currently in the design phase, the one that is furthest along is set inside the Halo universe, but will not be any sort of direct sequel to any of the previous Halo games.

Shane Kim also addressed complaints lobbied against Microsoft regarding hardware malfunctions with Xbox 360 systems. In a down-to-earth fashion, Kim stated, "It's unfortunate that people have had problems with their Xbox 360." Kim went on to acknowledge that Microsoft could use "some improvement on both sides of the situation."